


Fading Failure

by Tahlruil



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6508171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tahlruil/pseuds/Tahlruil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In dreams, the possibilities are endless; sometimes they confront us with a truth we'd rather not know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fading Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing I wrote while trying to get into Alysia's head a bit more. Might become part of a series, might not. Yay uncertainties!

_Screams filled the air, weaving into the other sounds ripping the night air apart to form a tapestry of terror. Armored feet strode across the ground in a relentless march; men made monsters advanced ruthlessly, cutting down any and all in their path. Blood everywhere, running in thick streams to stain the ground red. Death and destruction rained down from the sky, and they could do nothing to stand against it. For a moment there was hope, but it died with Roderick as he spoke of a path; he hadn’t had enough time to tell them the location. The strange boy who’d followed her from Therinfal Redoubt, Cole, couldn’t ferret the information out of a dead man. Soon they would all be dead – Commander Cullen knew it as well as she._

_Everyone else was looking to her for a miracle – even Leliana had a hint of hope in her eyes. They all were waiting for her to save them…. But she couldn’t. All she could offer them was death; a death whose form she would choose. Her heart pounded in her ears, her thoughts a chaotic swirl. Children whimpered softly, too afraid to cry as the adults whispered that they would be saved – the Herald of Andraste would save them. Cullen was asking for a decision, and above it all was the keening call of a dragon. No… an_ Archdemon _. What hope had they? There were no miracles in her… they were all going to die. But she could give them a softer death than the sword._

_“The avalanche. Make it the avalanche” Her voice was a whisper made through numb lips, because she’d just given the order that would kill them all. The children would never grow to be adults that looked to her for miracles, and that was a mercy and a curse and bitterness and sweetness all wrapped into one yearning moment where she wished things were_ different _. Better. It was supposed to be better, and this wasn’t how it was supposed to end, and Maker forgive her but part of her was glad it was over. She didn’t go out to man the trebuchet, because she needed to be there with the people who’d come to believe in her. If she couldn’t save them, she could at least die with them. They didn’t appreciate the gesture, and accusing eyes pricked her from every corner of the Chantry – if she was out there, she could stop it, the glares said. If she weren’t so weak, so cowardly, she could have saved them. She should have been prepared, should have_ known _that closing the Breach would come at a cost. They were dying because she had failed the charge she was given._

_Maker forgive her, but when the mountain exploded above them, raining tons of snow and heavy rock onto Haven, she was so glad that it would be over. As the world around her erupted into chaos, screams of terror and pain reaching her ears overlaid by groaning wood and stone, tears streamed down her cheeks. They were not born of fear or regret – nothing so simple or pure. No, it was relief tracing salty trails down her skin, because finally, finally, she would be at peace._

_She welcomed the snow and the rubble, because it meant an end._

When she jerked awake from the dream, Alysia Trevelyan was covered in a cold sweat. Locks of hair stuck to her face and her back, and she shivered despite the layers of blankets she was buried in. Those blankets were in disarray, twisted up with some dangling from the edge of the bed, a testament to the fight she'd put up against her dreams. Unfortunately, those efforts were for naught, because they'd found her anyway. Haven was never far from her in the Fade, and it never ended well. Sometimes everyone died, sometimes she did; sometimes Cullen was snapped up by the Archdemon's maw, and sometimes she watched all her friends throw their lives away to try and save her.

That night, however, it wasn't the deaths that could have happened, _should_ have happened, was not what haunted her. As she sat up and drew her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly and hiding her face there, it was something else entirely on her mind. Her tears and the sobs that tore out of her throat came from the fact that the dream wasn't entirely wrong. Part of her would have been glad to die at Haven. Part of her just wanted this all to _stop_. When she was awake, it was easier to forget that, but at night, in her dreams...

Every night Alysia died, and she was always relieved when it happened.


End file.
